Rise Of The Night Fury
by KillerGeishaYumi
Summary: Modern. Dragon!Hiccup. Rogue Of The Night rewrite. Little bit of both Spider-Man and Case Closed (aka Detective Conan). Life is pretty simple for Hiccup, but when he discovers a strange case to investigate, things quickly spiral out of control.
1. Chapter 1

This is Berk.

It's twelve days north of Hopeless and a few degrees south of Freezing-To-Death. It's situated solidly on the meridian of Misery.

The capital is, in a word, sturdy. Every single building is built of steel and stone, and has stood for generations. They all still look like new, too. In the countryside there's fishing and hunting in abundance, and we've got a beautiful view of the sunset.

The only problem is the crime rate. It's surprisingly high, given the exact size of our population; this is because none of the criminals are local. They're all from off-island - and after committing their crimes, they escape off-island just as quickly.

Really makes the locals unhappy; we're all descended from Vikings, the rogues of the northern seas. Our _ancestors_ had been the ones to sail in, pillage and plunder, and then sail out, and now another group is doing the same thing to us.

Oh yeah, and these crooks are anthropomorphic dragons.

I'm not kidding. Scaly skin, scaly tails, claws and fangs, and even fire-breath. They generally gather according to their breed, and raid Berk like gangs.

My name's Hiccup, by the way. Son of the Chief. I work under Gobber as a...well, we do a lot of stuff. Mostly keeping the local police force (and everybody else) armed and dangerous, so I guess we're blacksmiths. It's a job that keeps me off the streets and out from under everybody's feet.

So we're clear, I don't hate this job; I'm building things that people are using. What I hate is that everyone considers me too small and weak to defend this place - which is _my_ home too.

I mean I _am_ small and weak, compared to the other kids my age. I don't really want to be a cop, because they have this rotation thing going: basically, three hours of street duty for every one hour of detective duty. My appearance, even in a uniform, won't prevent crime from happening, and I don't have the strength to fight dragons.

Just once though, I want to get out there and save some lives with my own hands. Being able to protect your home with lethal force, especially against dragons, is _everything_ on Berk.

There are four really common breeds that are responsible for most of the crime around here. First there are the Deadly Nadders, which look kind of like parrots with nose-horns, big nostrils, and long spiny tails; they never wear sleeves because of the massive wing membranes on their arms, and they never wear hats or hoods because of their crested-porcupine hair. They rarely even wear shoes because of their bird-claw feet. They're quick and agile, and have the hottest fire of all the dragons. They're the only ones able to melt holes in buildings.

Then there are the Gronkles. Borderline-impenetrable scales, jaws powerful enough to take _bites_ out of walls and pillars, and strong enough to fight ordinary humans one-on...the most I've ever seen has been six...and win without ever even spewing its lava-breath. It's the only common dragon that doesn't really have horns or spikes, but their jaws are so bulked-up and toothy that they don't need any extra horns. Oh yeah - their "wings" are basically just a couple of membranes stretched between long bones that move up and down. Between those twin membranes and those massive muscle-barrels they call torsos, they don't wear shirts. In fact, they don't even wear pants because of their heavy tails and beefed-up thighs; they usually make do with loincloths and boots.

Speaking of twin anything, the third gang is the Hideous Zipplebacks. They're long and lean, have short, hooked nose-horns and long, thin eyebrow-horns, and they _always_ traveled in pairs (when anyone bothered to refer to half a pair by itself, they used "Zipplehead"). And the strangest part was that each pair had only two arms, two legs, and two wings _between_ them - and each Zipplehead had its own tail, attached to where their second leg _should_ have been, so a Zippleback had two tails. Exactly how those were mix-and-matched varied among the pairs; one pair might have the arms and legs be on the same sides, while another might match the arms and legs diagonally. What also varied was which of them spewed foul-smelling, combustible gas and which of them produced sparks off their teeth. Basically, the Hideous Zipplebacks were the least predictable dragons to fight - you knew they were going to make something explode, and that was about it.

Finally, there are the Monstrous Nightmares. Long, lean, and _t_ _he_ biggest, one Nightmare was the size of a Hideous Zippleback pair _combined_. Size alone would make it difficult to find clothes - and they also have lots of spikes running down their backs and tails, and their arms have wing membranes that are almost as big as a Nadder's (relative to the Nightmare, so they might actually be _as_ big as a Nadder's wings), so that's a lot of stuff that clothes would have to fit over. Then there's that nasty habit they have of setting themselves on fire. Basically, they've given up on shirts altogether and make do with pants; don't ask me how they don't just torch those. In fact, don't even ask me how they get the pants on without shredding them: the claws on their hands and feet are _shockingly_ long (so yeah, no gloves or boots either). They also have long jaws - like some freaky mix of wolf and crocodile - and their foreheads have branching and twisting horns.

Gobber has two prosthetic limbs because of Monstrous Nightmares. One ripped his hand off, and less than a month later another one took his leg.

I've been reading the files on these guys over and over again, trying to find some weakness that _I_ can exploit. So far, nothing.

* * *

The night was clear, the moon was a shining crescent, and there was no gang action in town. I was finally able to get some time off, and I wandered my way to Raven Point. It was kind of my special place - away from my cousin Scott, and his buddies Ruth and Tully. I'd climb trees, slide on the hills, go to the cove and swim in the lake...all kinds of stuff. As I got older and those boyish activities got less interesting, I would just go out there to think. Fisher used to come with me, and then...I don't want to say we drifted apart, but...well, we did sort of drift apart. We're still friends, but he got other friends who were more inclined to physical activities. Now there's no one I'd want to bring with me out here.

Well...

I looked through the trees at the sky full of stars and sighed, my thoughts drifting to the one person I would like to bring out here.

Astrid.

Strong and beautiful, with attitude in spades; if there was one girl I wanted to date in all of Berk, it was her. Of course, it was nothing but a pipe dream - she probably wouldn't come near me even if she were on fire and I had the only bucket of water in town. What did I have to offer her? How could I impress her?

I had nothing - well, not _nothing_ , I wouldn't call my weapon-crafting skills or intellectual capabilities _nothing_ \- but I didn't know how to get her attention to show her anything. Emulating Scott would just get me punched in the face. Or laughed at.

If only my dad would give me some advice. But I knew exactly what he'd say if I ever asked. _"Grow some bone and muscle,_ then _you can start on the attracting-ladies business."_ He had already, many times over, expressed his disappointment in my stature; he'd never expect that a girl would be interested in a talking fishbone.

If only I could ask my mother. But she...well.

Suddenly a branch broke, so close to me that I nearly had a heart attack.

I have no conscious recollection of stepping behind a tree, but I found myself concealed as an old man walked stiffly past me into the woods with a suitcase.

 _Mildewed Mayhew?_

He rarely left his farm, and he _never_ went into the deep woods. What was he doing here?

Curiosity piqued, I started following him - staying very low and making liberal use of the cover.

Mayhew reached a clearing and stopped right in the middle of it. Then he just stood there, fidgeting.

After a moment's thought, I decided that I would have the best view of the situation from a tree. I prowled around the outside of the clearing, looking for a tree that I could get into without attracting the attention of Mayhew - or whoever he was meeting out here.

* * *

By the time the other guy showed up, it had been almost an hour and I had found myself an ideal position. The colors I had on today even matched the tree somewhat. They'd have to know I was up here before they'd see me.

He was big - and he wasn't all that quiet. Mayhew spun in the direction of the stomping footsteps.

"I've been waiting here for _hours!_ What kind of society do you dragon-people have that you keep your elders waiting?"

 _What?_

I gaped at the scene below. The approaching figure had such massive jaws that I could see every red bump on it - and every razor-sharp tooth sticking out of it. A Gronkle! As he came fully into the light I saw he was wearing a long trench coat and a hat; I guess he thought it disguised his dragon disposition? All he accomplished was looking like he was going to flash somebody.

"Grrn...not my eld'rrr."

That gravelly voice took my breath away. I hadn't known any of the dragons could _speak!_

Mayhew looked sharply at the coat, as though trying to see if something was in one of the pockets. "I did what you said...I came alone."

"Rrr, me know. Me checked."

"Give it to me!"

"Hurrr, hrr, hrr...pay up furrrssht."

What, Mayhew was up to something illegal? That...wasn't a very big surprise. What was a surprise was that the Gronkle gang was capable of something this sophisticated. I could have suspected Nadders or Zipplebacks to be capable of sophistication, but not Gronkles.

Mayhew brandished the suitcase. "Here!" At the Gronkle's impatient gesture he fumbled the case open and displayed the contents.

Rocks?

Why rocks?

They didn't even look like particularly valuable rocks from here.

The Gronkle took one of the rocks and broke it in half with his clawed hands. He sniffed, he licked, and then he rumbled; he sounded pleased.

 _Gronkles like certain kinds of rock, maybe?_ I made a mental note to look into Mayhew's activities; figure out where he got the rocks. Once I knew what those rocks were, I could make a more intelligent guess.

Then the Gronkle put the rocks back, slammed the suitcase, and took it from Mayhew.

"Right, now give me the hard drive! Cough it up!"

The Gronkle rumbled in response; at first I thought it was laughing, and then I realized it really was about to cough something up.

Mayhew realized that too, and took a careful step back.

Something clicked against the Gronkle's teeth, and then he plucked a black box out of his mouth. "Yourrr harrrrddrrrrrive." He tossed it in the air and tucked the suitcase under his coat.

Mayhew fumbled after the hard drive. He caught it in both hands - and then turned half-away from the dragon, holding the hard drive at arm's length by his fingertips. "Right, yes...this is the only one?"

"Of courrrrrrsse."

Mayhew evidently decided to take the dragon's word for it. He edged away, slowly and keeping one eye on the dragon until he got back into the trees. Then, by the sound, he started running as soon as he thought it was safe.

 _I would give big money to know what's on that hard drive..._

There was a sound behind me. I turned to see what it was -

Pain exploded low in my shoulders, and I suddenly found myself hurtling forward out of the tree. I landed on my face in the clearing and felt something land _heavily_ on my back with a spectacular _crack,_ forcing all the wind out of my lungs. For a second, I thought I was going to die right then.

The weight left my back quickly enough. The pain stayed in my shoulders though, and my chest felt flattened. I couldn't really move right away, but I managed to turn my head a bit so that I could breathe a little.

"You werrra right. The old one was followed."

 _That's...not...the Gronkle..._ I opened one eye carefully. Brilliant amber scales and a long chin were suspended over my head.

Monstrous Nightmare?

And he didn't seem to be looking at the Gronkle, either.

A squawk of a laugh. "Of course I was right."

Only a Deadly Nadder could sound that much like a parrot. A really arrogant parrot.

What the hel was going on here?

The Gronkle growled. Loudly. "Me killa old man. He say he come alone."

"And there was no lie in his scent when he said it, my grumpy friend. He thought he did come alone." Then the - it _was_ a Nadder, a green one - came into my field of vision and looked me in the eye. "We have here a nosy-nosy."

" _I_ killa the nosy," the Nightmare snarled. "He broke my-a rrrrac-c-k-k."

"You did that to yourself, head-butting him out of the tree like that. But yes, he should die; he knows too much." A fierce squawk. " _Flameless!_ Or do you wish to set the forest ablaze and alert everyone that your kind was here?"

The Nightmare settled from...whatever he was about to do...with a grumpy noise.

"Me crrrrush?" the Gronkle asked hopefully.

I was not liking this conversation one bit. _Have to...get out...of here..._

Except I could still barely move, and every move I did make was accompanied by chest and shoulder pain. Did I have broken ribs? And when that Nightmare's horns broke, did a couple of prongs snap off and get lodged under my scapulas?

The Nadder clicked his tongue. "By the time you made him properly dead, you would leave sign that _your_ kind was here." A rustle. "I could as well...but I would leave my sign." A pause, a sniffing. "What do you think? Have we an untraceable weapon?"

I didn't hear any answer at first. But I had my suspicions. There was a Gronkle, a Nightmare, and a Nadder all standing practically right on top of me; all that was left was for a Zippleback to be here.

" _Yessssss..._ "

A thumping sound followed the hiss, like something was waddling heavily out of the forest from behind my head. Then the sound changed, from one waddling creature to two slithering ones, and a couple of wings hauled me up to a backward-bending position (making my shoulders, and most of my torso, scream in agony).

Yup, Zippleback. Midnight-blue twins with eerie gold eyes.

They balanced on their one leg apiece and wrapped their tails around my arms, immobilizing me. Then they started playing with something outside my field of vision, moving in sync with each other so they didn't drop whatever they were playing with.

 _Why exactly are_ all four _dragon gangs here?_

"Lightning fassssst..."

"...and untrasssseable."

Their wings suddenly pressed against my head from both sides, one of the Zippleheads pinched my nose shut, and the other poured something nasty-tasting into my mouth.

 _What? Poison? The dragon gangs are sophisticated enough to make..._ my thought stuttered to a stop. I didn't want to swallow this stuff, but I didn't have any way to get rid of it: gravity was against me, and the Zippleback wasn't letting me move (and writhing to _try_ and get away was painful). They were giving me a pretty clear choice of drink-or-drown here - and I was starting to get a little fuzzy-headed from lack of oxygen.

The dragon that had been holding the vial started to gently massage the side of my neck, and before I could consciously register what I was doing, I swallowed the poison. Satisfied, they dumped me back on my face.

"Right, we're done," the Nadder said impatiently. "Let's get out of here before someone comes looking for this brat."

A stampede of feet faded away and I was suddenly alone in the forest.

 _Okay, now what?_ I'd swallowed that stuff...but so far I felt fine. Just a little squashed from earlier...

Suddenly my body was filled with the most unbearable heat; it was like I swallowed Gobber's forge. My back hurt and burned beyond all reason around those horn pieces, and my throat seemed to swell.

I started shaking uncontrollably, and my breath came in ragged pants. Every inhale was like a cold burst in my lungs - and every exhale was hot enough that the grass immediately in my field of vision was starting to wilt.

 _Too...hot...going to...melt..._

The forest started to morph in my eyes; trees loomed ominously close, suddenly twisted, and just as suddenly retreated.

This was the worst fever I'd ever had in my life - and if the Zippleback was serious, it would be my last.

Clearly though, they'd been lying about the "lightning-fast" part. Unless they meant it _started working_ like lightning. But it wasn't killing me instantly; instead I was going to die slowly and horribly.

 _No...don't want...to die here...haven't...even...kissed..._

Just breathing seemed to help - cool air in, hot air out - but it wasn't making much of a difference.

Water. There was water in the cove, and it was always cold. If I could only get there, maybe...

In a fit of desperation I tried to make my limbs move. My left arm jerked ahead, my right leg jerked up; I braced my toes and gripped the ground, and writhed for all I was worth.

Eight inches.

 _Just...keep...moving..._

My world rapidly narrowed to two things: my overheating body, and the next patch of ground I was going to take.


	2. Chapter 2

When I woke up I wasn't hot anymore...though I wasn't really cold, either. Mostly, I just felt kind of weird.

Also everything hurt - but it was a good kind of hurt, because it meant I was still alive.

Slowly I pushed myself up and looked around. I was at the bottom of the cove; from my current position, it looked like an inescapable prison, but I had been down here before (as recently as a month ago) and I knew there was a way out somewhere.

I just...had to get my head working properly.

What happened to my shirt and boots? I was getting really itchy.

I sort of remembered falling off the top of the cliff and landing in the lake, practically right under the waterfall - but the trajectory I remembered didn't make any sense: I'd dropped at an _angle_ , ending up several yards away from where I would have landed if I'd gone straight down. Not sure I'd have landed quite where I did even if I'd had the strength and coordination left to get up and jump (which I definitely had not). Had that been a fever-dream?

Things got really vague in the water; that waterfall had been deafening, and the cold had seeped into me...my back and feet, particularly...and it got hard to breathe as, I don't know, the humidity got to the point that the air was mostly water. I _really_ don't know how I got out of the water before I drowned...or froze.

* * *

A rockfall had blocked the only easy way out.

I stared at the pile of stone, wondering when in the past twenty-eight days _that_ had happened. Now I had to climb out of here, and there was no good climbing route anywhere.

Not like I had any prayer of digging that path clear, though; and Option Three was to just set up camp and live down here.

I found what looked like the easiest wall to climb and started edging my way up, clinging to cracks with my finger and toe nails. And they _were_ basically just cracks in the wall - anything that might qualify as a ledge crumbled the instant I put the slightest weight on it ("easiest" had been very much a relative term). If I didn't reach the top on the first attempt, a second attempt would be much harder.

It took hours, I think - though my watch was broken, and my world had narrowed to the climb anyway, so I wasn't actually sure. I was getting extremely tired and my chest was starting to burn, but I was close enough to the top that I could probably jump the rest of the way. I thought. I _hoped_. My exhaustion wasn't just physical but mental - I was sick of that wall. I gathered my remaining strength, focused on the top of the cliff, and leaped.

My fingers hit nearly-vertical, way-too-smooth rock - _inches_ away from the top - and my toes found absolutely nothing to catch on. For a moment I was suspended in midair as my hands and feet scrabbled uselessly against the wall, and then I fell away.

That was when my world _really_ turned upside-down.

My body felt like it exploded. Huge pieces of skin and bone unfurled from around my torso, caught the air (and _didn't_ tear off my back; that hurt quite a bit), and stretched out to an impossible length on either side of me as I glided over the lake. When I reflexively hugged myself in response to the sudden pain, I still seemed to have a musculoskeletal torso; which was weird, because it _felt_ like I shouldn't have anything left to protect my vitals.

It didn't make any sense until I looked around - and then for a few seconds it _still_ didn't make any sense, because what I was seeing should have been impossible. But it did explain the trajectory of my earlier fall.

Those huge pieces of skin and bone? They were wings. Gigantic black bat-wings.

When I first hit the ground, my legs didn't respond properly: my knees felt like they'd locked, and the long bones curved like they'd been turned into arrow shafts. And when I writhed around to look, I saw that my feet had flattened out into half a tail-wing each and turned inky black. My torso was black, too, and covered in scales - scales that also sheathed my arms all the way out to my hands - and my fingernails had turned into claws.

And the astonished shriek I emitted at all these strange details...well, it echoed around the cove like a nuclear reactor warming up.

" ** _WHAAAT?!_** "

* * *

It was...well, quite a long time before I really calmed down. Longer before I dared crawl over to the lake and check my reflection. When I finally did, well, what I saw was both expected and not. Yes, my face and neck were covered in black scales like what was on my hands (strangely enough, I still had my own auburn hair) and my eyes were eerily luminescent and with slit-pupils, but...

Well, let me put it this way. _Clearly_ I was some sort of weredragon now - but all the weredragons I had ever seen to date have had overgrown fangs instead of teeth, and curving horns mounted on their noses; I had my regular teeth (possibly even retracted a little bit), and not even the hint of a nose-horn. I also didn't have antlers - or spikes growing out of my hair or on my (now overgrown and bat-like) ears or anywhere else.

I was a really cute, soft-looking weredragon, not a brutal monster.

Soft- _looking_. Every time I moved, I felt the stirring of powerful muscles under my skin. I was just sleek instead of bulky; I was probably very fast. Or I would be once I figured out how to move this strange new body - right now I was only clumsy. I hoped that I could still walk: preliminary inspection of my legs suggested that they really had turned into...well, two halves of a tail.

My legs had been perfectly normal legs when I first woke up. _I_ had been perfectly normal when I first woke up. Obviously this transformation was something that could be turned on and off; I wondered if I could control the on/off switch, and if that was normal for the weredragons.

That was a creepy thought, the idea that there could be weredragons among us without us even knowing it.

Still...being a weredragon now, and with wings big enough to possibly carry me in flight, could actually work in my favor. If I could learn how to manipulate those wings, if I _could_ fly, I could escape the cove.


	3. Chapter 3

Turns out, having fully functional wings growing out of my back didn't automatically give me the capability to fly. They hurt to move; my _brain_ hurt trying to process that it was receiving signals from new appendages, and had to _send_ messages to said appendages. I wondered if phantom pains were like this.

Still I practiced, until I ran out of stamina, and then I went to try and catch some lunch from the lake. Fish wasn't very filling, but it was all that was available and I hadn't eaten since...I wasn't sure when. It depended on how long I was down there.

Of course, I didn't have _any_ fishing supplies or the materials to _make_ any supplies.

Not like I had any intention of letting this stop me. Bears could catch fish, no trouble, with just their claws and teeth; I had my own claws and teeth, _and_ I was smarter than a bear. I just had to think this over.

What I wound up doing was crawling around the lake's edge, looking for a spot that was both deep and far from the actual waterfall, and then waiting for a fish to swim up. As I waited, I wondered if I'd been gone long enough for anyone to think about looking for me - and if anyone cared enough to look.

Unlikely. I was the town embarrassment, nearly; only Fisher liked me.

* * *

When the fish finally arrived, my brain barely had time to register that it was a trout before my hands lashed out on their own to grab it - the momentum of the strike sending my whole body sliding into the lake. Needing my hands to climb back out, I aimed the fish at my mouth with the _intention_ of carrying it up in my teeth...

Except what happened instead was the fish missed my teeth and went most of the way in, its head practically touching the back of my throat. Before I could finish processing that my mouth was big enough to hold a trout inside it, my throat muscles worked a few times and I swallowed that fish whole.

At first I couldn't believe what had just happened. Then the trout started doing battle with my stomach.

No creature has ever left a body of water as fast as I did just then; I reverted to human form at some point during the scramble, and just lay on the bank gasping for breath. And groaning. And trying to puke, but the fish was too big to go back up my _human_ esophagus, so all I was accomplishing was dry heaves.

Finally the trout died from lack of oxygen, making my stomach the winner; I still felt bruised inside, and sick, and I wondered about parasites and bacteria. And how long it would take digestive fluids to dismantle a fish that still had its scales on.

 _I'm never swallowing a live fish again. Next one's getting cooked._

Eventually it occurred to me that trout don't have spiny fins, and I thanked the gods for that small mercy: at least my gut wasn't punctured a thousand ways to Thursday.

* * *

The sun had gone down by the time I felt up to practicing my flight again. Fortunately my weredragon eyes could see in the dark, so I at least wasn't crashing into walls or trees. Just before I ran out of stamina again, I managed to fly over the lake without plunging into it and...well, it wasn't a _crash_ landing exactly. My arms were my landing gear, and they did their job - I just tilted forward to land on my face, too.

Still, it was progress.

When I got my breath back, I made another pass over the lake in search of a shallow-sleeping fish. Luck was with me: not only did I spot one, but I managed to grab it without ruining my flight - _and_ I didn't automatically swallow this one. Though this fish was bigger than the other one, so I might not have been able to swallow it.

Once on solid ground, I spitted the fish on a stick and de-scaled it as best I could with my claws. Then I got a firepit all set up...and realized I hadn't figured out how to use my fire. In fact, I wasn't sure I even had firepower.

Yeah, I know; _logically_ I should have had firepower. That stupid poison had made me so damn hot that I'd needed to take a cold swim just to keep from melting - and although the heat had seemed to be evenly dispersed through my entire body at the time, in retrospect I sort of remembered a big piece of it being concentrated somewhere in my chest. But I hadn't yet breathed any fire.

 _Well, start with the obvious. Breathe in, breathe out._

I settled by my campfire, crossed my legs (which were still half-tails, so they sort of coiled together), and started meditating. A deep breath in, a deep breath out...a hand on my chest, trying to feel if anything was stirring inside that hadn't been there before. Finding, and then dismissing, the rhythms of my breathing and heartbeat. Then...

 _There._

A knot below my collarbone. It wasn't fire, _yet_ _;_ it wasn't even heat. It was pressure, so strong that it seemed impossible that I'd completely _missed_ its existence until I started to look for it. My deep breaths were stroking it, sending not-quite-painful sensations up my neck and making _something_ open in the back of my mouth.

It sort of itched; I wanted to cough.

I was also sure that coughing was a Very Bad Idea.

 _Steady, Hiccup; control it. Breathe in..._

The itchy, weird sensations intensified - and a high-pitched, inhuman sound echoed up from my throat. My eyes widened, but I kept them fixed on the unlit campfire. I leaned forward, my wings shifting to help my balance, and opened my mouth.

 _Breathe out...slowly..._

The flame didn't spill out of my mouth: it _stabbed_ , like a blowtorch with astonishing reach - and also like a blowtorch, the flame was blue-white. _No_ weredragon had ever had a flame like that; closest was the Nadders.

Well, I had a lit campfire now. Time to cook some dinner, and - figure out how to turn the firepower back off.


	4. Chapter 4

I suspected a drink of water could douse my firebreath, but that turned out to not be necessary: there had been a much simpler answer, one that didn't require me to immediately untangle my legs. Obviously I couldn't breathe fire if my mouth was _closed_ , so shutting my mouth tightly for a few seconds made the valves in my throat close.

While I waited for my fish to cook, I practiced warming up and shutting off my fire; it was much easier than manipulating the wings (though my chest did feel sore by the time dinner was ready). Stood to reason - my wings could open and close, move in a circle, wrap around my chest, but the fire-sac-thing in my chest _only_ did one thing. Produce flame, at varying degrees of intensity.

I wondered what would happen if I _did_ cough.

Anyway, after dinner I found a nice clear patch of ground (with no grass) and used my fire to warm a sleeping spot. Without even _thinking_ I lay down on the glowing embers I'd made - and discovered that fortunately my weredragon scales were immune, or at least highly resistant, to my own flames.

My pants were not. Ha ha.

Since I was alone and I would need my pants when I finally got out of here, I just took them off and tossed them a safe distance from my bed. I wondered if my weredragon form would shut off while I slept and hoped it would at least not happen until the embers had cooled to safe levels for human skin.

* * *

 _I dreamed of lightning and death; of the horrible raging fire that nearly ended me. It was in my blood, in my lungs, in my brain; consuming my breath, consuming my thoughts..._

 _Then I dreamed of what happened after I fell into the cove and glided into the lake. Cold water met hot skin and_ very _hot wings, with the surprisingly dramatic but somehow expected result of a loud hiss and massive clouds of steam. My wings and various fins tried to fold in on themselves - tried to put themselves away to escape the cold; I somehow managed to maintain control over everything that was basically just skin and blood vessels, and_ kept them open _until they stopped sending up clouds_. _At which point I finally felt more comfortable, though still abnormally warm._

* * *

The next morning I was still a weredragon. My legs were twisted around each other in a way that would have been _very_ unnatural for a human, and my wings were encasing me like a blanket. And yet somehow my body was completely relaxed in this awkward position.

I had to struggle a little to get myself untangled. Those large wings were a bit inconvenient, but my dream had put them in a new light. That concoction would have killed me if I hadn't been able to get rid of all that excess body heat, and those bat wings gave up heat very quickly.

After catching breakfast and setting it to cook in the firepit, I got back to flight practice. Nothing but fish, day in and day out, wasn't healthy for a human (I refused to think that an all-fish diet was my new reality), and I wanted _out of here_.

I seemed to be doing better - but my landing still needed work. A lot of work. Since my landing gear was my arms, I had to approach the ground like I was planning to slide in on my belly; I always felt like I was going to dig a trench with my face, especially since coming in _slow_ was nearly impossible. I started looking for patches of thick grass to come in on - for extra security.

The first patch taught me something else about my new dragon form...

At first, it was nothing; I just crushed a lot of blades, first by slamming onto them and then by trying to get my legs to stop acting like half-tails so I could get back up. Then I got a good whiff of the bruised grass. It had a nice smell...a _very_ nice smell, far better than just a newly-mowed lawn; it was spicy and chilly all at once, tingling in my nostrils and up my sinuses. There was also an undertone...heavy and sweet like thick honey, oozing through my brain and...

And then I slowly came up from a _truly delightful_ time rolling around in the grass, feeling completely relaxed and even at peace with the world but also with a stuffy nose and a heavy head.

"Ugh."

I untangled my legs again, crawled out of the grass and rubbed my face, trying to recover - and piece together what just happened. Not like I needed to think very hard: obviously that grass was like catnip for weredragons, and I was susceptible. Maybe even highly susceptible.

It would be a good idea to check the area for more of that grass before I restarted flight practice.

No, not to get high again! My intent was to _avoid_ getting high so that I could focus on my flight practice, therefore I needed to not crash in that particular type of grass again. Also, if I could figure out a safe way to gather and carry it, maybe when I got out of here I could drug-bomb some of those other weredragons; find out if it worked on them, as well as on me.

After a few minutes my legs started obeying my brain properly again, and I scouted the area for more dragon-nip; my nose was still stuffy, so at least I wouldn't be affected by it again. Also I returned to human form, hoping that that would at least slow any reaction after my sense of smell came back.

There were two large patches of dragon-nip; I marked their locations and made a mental note to avoid them.

* * *

 **Author's note:** I know this chapter took a _very_ long time to come out. I've been struggling with anxiety since the end of October 2017, and it's been making it difficult to write. Also this was sort of a nothing-chapter - not much happened, not much _could_ happen, but I couldn't just jump straight from the end of the previous chapter to Hiccup getting out of the hole.

Next chapter _will_ be a time-jump though.


End file.
